The Prokofiev Conversation
I guess I could open this with saying it started with my wife trying to cheer up
my poor ailing mother who was living her last years after losing practically
everything she had to a frivolous lawsuit. She had lost everything fighting it,
that is, appealing all the way to the Connecticut supreme court. Her
father had been a lawyer, and she didn't listen to me when I tried to tell her
that man's justice was corrupt. That's why I decided against trying to
drive a cab in New York again back in '93. I couldn't have afforded the
potential lawsuits. As for mom, all I could do was try to catch her when
they cut her down.
She was living in the master bedroom
of our large mobile home as peacefully and comfortably as we possibly could make
her and she was recovering well from the extreme paranoia, a mental illness that
she had acquired because of the incessant beating she had received at the hand
of the now deceased father of the woman who had brought this lawsuit against
her. He used to beat her so hard he'd break her bones. By the
time I learned of it the man was dead and gone. When someone is suffering from mental illness, it's important to know that
they need your support. They tend to be vilified by others who don't understand
their incessant anger and lashing out. It puts them in a vicious cycle as
they get worse and worse.
My mother was a brilliant woman and could have made such a wonderful
contribution during her lifetime and I suppose in a way she did, because she
raised me. Now I'm not just saying that, she did a great job in a very unusual
way. During my childhood she kept me occupied with very significant things,
whereas other children were being ignored by their parents and, bit by bit,
losing important parts of their mental capabilities. It's very important as a
child matures, that their minds be kept active, because if they don't, there are
mechanisms within the mind that sheer away all the parts of the brain that are
not used, by and large, at least the reasoning part of the brain.
In fact that tragic lack of wisdom and reasoning in our present day, early
21st-century society, is, by and large, due to the upsurge of mechanization in the
early 20th century, especially around the time of the roaring twenties, that caused very many parents to become preoccupied with
their gadgets or modern lifestyles and to tend to ignore their children. The chieftest of these were the
television and sporting event broadcasts. This is probably one of the main
things that robbed fathers and children of so much quality time as we call it. But
I digress -- necessarily, of course. So we'll stick that into the beginning of
this discussion on what I call "The Prokofiev Conversation".
I wasn't very well versed in the science of psychology. That's not unusual.
Psychology is basically reserved these days for big business and other big
things like big politics and the military, all learning how to use psychology in
a negative way in order to force people to do things they ordinarily would
have the wisdom not to do. This is a big problem with big business using
psychology to cause every living person subject to it to fail in good money
management and fall victim to impulse spending. Of course, there's other
spending that's necessary now, such as transportation expenses necessitating the
ownership of a car because of zoning requiring it by prohibiting small business
to locate near domiciles so that residents have to commute to work and travel to
shop in just about every social area, of America at least. That in some way had
to be intentional; it could not have been by accident or coincidence.
But my mother was healing up. My therapy of peace and quiet was working, and, as long as problems
didn't occur she was doing fine. But problems do occur, and even slight problems would tend to cause her to relapse into
her paranoia, such as a huge pine bow weighted down with snow striking the side
of the mobile home and piercing it just above the water heater in the closet in
her room, triggering off a
chain of events that mother ignored, pretending to her self that nothing was
wrong. But, anyway, the assault of the snow-laden branch damaged the furnace and
not just the water heater and
that got us a new water heater and furnace which helped us to be able to sell the
mobile home after she died. I wrote about her passing away in my article
"The
Brave Little Willow Tree".
But Jen showed up one day with a cute little bird feeder made in China. It may
be that it was designed in the States and assembled in China, but somehow this
item looked like a Chinese craftsman's idea. Now, you
have to understand about Chinese work: I don't think people realize what
stupendous craftsmanship came out of China throughout all of history. Some of
the first most ancient glazed items appeared from there, especially in the
province where they still have natural gas coming up from the
ground, and if I ever visit China, that's where I want to go, at least first,
to see the great masters still at work there with their clay and their ceramics.
Well, whoever did this bird feeder was brilliant. It worked so well . And pretty
soon the area was filled with birds, and poor mother Hall was thrilled to see
all the different varieties right there in front of her window.
We got a little saying out of that, when the Blue Jays use to land at the trays
of this little wooden replica of a small house, where the seed used to come out
through the doors on each side, and the whole house used to rock and swing back
and forth, spilling seed on the ground, feeding the cute little brown wrens and
ground birds that couldn't find room on the four perches. And the saying which
we still use today is, "Peppie Jay swings the seed house".
But mother Marcelle used to, before I was born, back in the forties, raise
canaries. We began to notice a variety of bird that looked an awful lot like
canaries in the wild. During the summer months, the males would sport beautiful
yellow plumage, and they were tiny birds. I later found out that these were
finches, and they could be found all over the United States and elsewhere in the
world. Well, then the artist in me kicked in, and I began to do stuff that
annoyed the neighbors even more this time involving feeding the birds.
It started off when I found feeding socks, actual stockings, that you could fill
with the finches' most favorite seed, apparently, thistle seeds -- tiny black
little seeds. And I hung up a couple of those next to the swinging birdhouse. We
were all delighted to see that, not before long, about 12 finches, six pairs
basically, began to show up regularly for dinner and breakfast at the
clothesline where we hung the other couple of stockings.
So then I started to get carried away and went out and got five other stockings.
Pretty soon we had 20 or 30 of them. It was during that time that I was doing my
flowers beside a Connecticut Forest photography series, and you can see some
digital art based on the photography, in this site. While I was out doing the
photography, I noticed the cute little call they all made -- the incessant,
interrogative, single note they sang, a single little whistle that sounded like
they were asking questions.
It reminded me of the same interrogative sound a little canary that we had in
our family home in Maryland back in the mid-fifties, named Sunbeam, used to make
during its younger days. Now as an inquisitive, scientifically-minded little
nine-year-old kid, with a chemistry set and a microscope, and a telescope and
also a little planetarium that showed the constellations on the ceiling, and many
other things that mother Marcelle always made sure that I had plenty of, I found
myself spending time on the sun porch studying this little bird.
-- I
suppose it was like being a privileged kid, but you know, every kid really needs
toys like this, and some of these things don't cost that much, they can be
made with lenses and cardboard tubes, or spheres with little pinpricks in them
and a simple little flashlight bulb put in the middle of it, and the chemistry
set can be put together by anyone who's interested in chemistry. All you need
are such things as everyday non-toxic elements that can even be found in the
kitchen such as vinegar and baking powder, so you see it doesn't take a fortune
to be able to help these little kids' minds grow, and they will if you give them a
chance like mother Marcelle used to do helping me during my growing years.
Well, Sunbeam, whether it knew it or not, became my little teacher. I was working
on learning how to whistle in those days, and I was getting unwitting
inspiration from this little canary, who started off with that cute little
inquisitive, interrogative little chirp that all of the finches were doing on
the clothesline where the Peppie Jay would swing the seed house. Not only did I
learn to whistle, but I also memorized Sunbeam's beautiful little song that it
eventually started to sing. It started singing that when mother Marcelle used to
play her show tunes and classical music on the hi-fi.
Little Sunbeam's beautiful song was roughly something like this: Four Notes
which seemed like a high C flat, then for more one quarter of the way down the
octave, then three long notes at a one-and-one-quarter octave jump up from there
-- approximately -- and then something that seemed two-and-one-eighth octaves
down for four notes and then four more about two and a half notes up.
Now these weren't precisely with in the human musical octaves, and I wrote an article
about that, it's really quite a different form of music, where the notes are
actually slightly off according to our musical pitch, but they are not off at all in their sound. In fact, if we
could learn to compose like that we'd come up
with some terrific stuff, and I think the composers of the 20th century really
missed out by not paying attention to our avian experts at true natural music!
So I thought to myself, "hey!", "these guys are canaries!" Now how was I to know
this stuff? They didn't teach you this in school, at least I never got that. And
for most of us the only school we got out there was the one that was for free
and
that was high school, which I was fortunate to graduate from myself with all
those disabilities I had. But maybe that was a good thing. Maybe too much
education gets in the way of a person's ability to finally catch on; to finally
get it. So I used the inquisitive call first, and I must have made about 30
little friends right there, because these little birds actually seemed
fascinated that another species -- a human being yet -- would try to interface
with them and communicate in their beautiful language of music.
Well, I was really thrilled too. You know, these little birds were helping me to
sort of have a warmth and compassion that I normally was somewhat lacking in, as
is perhaps everyone out there, and the presence of these little guys was really
cheering me up, too! So then, I followed that up one day, with Sunbeam's little
song, which I had so carefully memorized during those summer months when we
school kids were out from school for vacation back in the fifties.
I really didn't think they were going to react. I sort of expected they would
continue with that cute little chirp, but they didn't! Instead, they mimicked
Sunbeam's song! So there we were out there happily exchanging this cute little
banter using good old Sunbeam's method of octave shifts and threes and fours.
Then after a few weeks of that, it occurred to me that may be these guys might
actually do a few varieties. So I began to whistle a few melodies from classical
music that I had memorized over the years as a kid. One of them was a little
sound bite, as it were, from Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf ", which mom used
to play for me when I was really young, back in the days when they had these
bakelite thick plastic 78's.
Well, it seemed to me like they didn't really catch on -- I really didn't expect
anything, I just thought I was a doing a little variety on my part. But one day,
out on a photo shoot, and by that time our sock collection had multiplied to
about 20 or 30 socks -- I really get carried away -- I was surprised to hear a
little different type of call among the finches. At first I couldn't make it
out, but after a while I caught on. They were actually singing my excerpt from
Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf! Only they had put their own variation on it.
They had naturalized it, and they sped it up! They'd taken about four bars of
music and condensed it into a half bar of time.
I thought, "Of course! These guys are so small, everything is sped-up for them."
I tried bits of other classical music, such as Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the
Hours" and parts of his 1812 overture, and the finches picked it up each time in
no less than 30 seconds, sometimes even less than that! These guys were capable
of reason. These little creatures were capable of the intellectual activity of
music!
Well, I really got carried away with the feeders. Pretty soon I had almost
a
hundred, some homemade, some store-bought -- all types and varieties. Everything
I could get my hands on. I found places where I could get thistle seed in huge
bags for reduced prices. Fortunately, since that part of New Hampshire was
largely an agrarian community, I was able to find my cash of seed at a rural
supply store near a railroad whistle stop. Meanwhile, I was learning other
things, like how to make deals with the squirrels so that they wouldn't raid the
seeds.
And I found out an immense amount about the squirrels, which will have to be for
another article, I suppose. But one of my conclusions of my little experiment
with those characters was that they can work in symbiosis with human beings in
planting crops, especially reforestation, particularly of hardwood species of
trees that yield nuts. Those characters were amazing . I made highways for them
among the trees, which they really loved. I didn't quite get to the point where
I could communicate with them, except unless perhaps they use telepathy.
Something we really don't know that much about -- at least most of us out here.
But I used to wave at one of the little fellows and say "Hi! how you doing?" --
and he would wave back at me and move his mouth to mimic my speaking.
I began to find that these animals were capable of a lot more intelligence and
reasoning then we give them credit for. We may find out that they are
intellectually capable and have to be entitled to representation and rights.
Heck, some of them might even succeed in human business to the chagrin of those
who can't even manage their checkbooks, who knows? But it was quite an adventure,
that little backyard, culminating with the irregular visits of sneezy, the black
bear.
After a couple of years, and I mean years -- the finches stayed with me
year-round -- and I mean, there were huge piles of
thistle seed halls black on
top of the white snow, the trees began to be filled with actually hundreds of
finches, and the whole area was filled with music. Classical music performed by
birds -- by the little finches. Of course, hardly anybody knew this, although I
was constantly looking around for people to actually experience the thrill so that I
wouldn't be the only one. I could barely get Jen to listen, she was so busy and
at first didn't hear them very well. In order to hear them you had to listen very
carefully, because they were so small that their beautiful song was fairly
faint. Although sometimes it would be loud and clear, you could only hear it from
about 50 or 60 yards away or less. Harry across the street came over and
heard them but his reaction was kind of like 'big deal'.
And then the day came, to our surprise, that we had to go. I should have known. I
thought my traveling days were over, but apparently not. As Woody Guthrie used
to say, "I come with the dust, and I'm gone with the wind". We had to pack up
and move from New England to Southern California. I was frantic. What about my
birds? What about their human? They needed another human to work with, somebody
who could really appreciate them. I frantically looked around the neighborhood
for people who would take my bird feeders.
Some would take one or two, but who would take the other ones? A
wonderful lady two trailers down took my huge rope, my 20 or 30 feeders and 20
or 30 socks, my two garbage cans filled with seeds, the whole paraphernalia --
including the squirrel feeders, necessary to keep the little squirrelies from
getting into the seeds. Just one thing. She would never hear the music. She was
deaf. She took the feeders because she loved the beauty of the gorgeous little
birds.
A little while later, somewhere in the town of Carlsbad just north of San Diego,
a few cute little finches were performing Prokofiev.
Click here to hear a rough version of Sunbeam's song followed by the interrogative call.
--Fine art, digital art, music, several voice introductions by me about my work, articles about my artwork and other topics such as sociology, the cosmos, economics, education, medicine, mathematics, poetry, humor, something I call premonitions, and a series about covered bridges, all by yours truly, the webmaster, Paul A.L. Hall. There are feedback, a website search engine, and exhaustive contents pages. Plus my weblogs are on site, an art school and classes.
The finches were capable of
the intellectual activity of music.
Copyright (c) 2005 by Paul A. L. Hall. All rights reserved.
The finches picked up the song Sunbeam the pet canary taught me back in the
fifties.
02 June, 2005